Sam Iles's Blog

In the face of blatant evidence of Apple’s superior quality and user experience in its products, Apple ‘haters’ usually resort to calling Apple expensive and – most usually – overpriced.

While you can’t really disagree that Apple’s products are expensive – anything which costs £1000 is expensive regardless of what it is – they certainly aren’t overpriced.

Hardware

Take the MacBook Air. I looked around a few companies websites to find the closest matching product (ultra-thin design and specs) and noted their prices.

So, the Dell has a smaller screen, weighs more and a slower processor but it’s still £10 more… Apple’s not so overpriced now, is it.

The misconception that Apple is overpriced comes from the fact that Dell do sell laptops from around £400 and Apple’s cheapest laptop is £849. You can see why someone would get confused but what they don’t realise is that that cheapest Dell is a much worse product than the cheapest MacBook. It makes sense for the Air to cost more because it’s a lot better. And, even when you get a Dell which is specced near the same as the MacBook the Dell is more expensive!

Bottom line: Apple’s hardware is not overpriced. It priced according to what it is.

Software

So the hardware is a lot better than its competitors, but, even if it weren’t, could Apple still be justified in charging more than for a PC? I think so. Namely because of the software.

Mac OS itself is supremely better than Windows, whichever way you look at it. I’ve known many people who say they want a Mac over their PC but they can’t afford it. And, they all say that the reason is the software. Everything is so much simpler on a Mac. Installing software involves dragging an icon to the Applications folder. No silly installer. Viruses are a thing of the past. Everything just works. In fact, you can probably cut hours and hours out of your work by using a Mac.

Also consider iLife. Windows users have nothing close to iLife in its power and simplicity. ‘Windows Movie Maker’. Please. That silly Windows Gallery app for photos? For a Windows user to replicate the power of iLife they would need to spend hundreds of pounds on iLife. Already they’ve lost all that money they think they saved by not buying a Mac.

Software is a major value add and makes the Mac very worthwhile.

Support

When you buy a Mac you get a one year guarantee. You ales get 90 days of phone support included (which you can extend for a small fee). That means that for 90 days any problem can be solved over the phone. Try doing that with Microsoft.

Longevity

I know people still using PowerBooks. Macs seem to last forever and, treated well, hardly ever break. You can easily stretch a MacBook out to last you five years. A cheap £400 Dell will last a few years tops. For every one Mac a Mac user buys, you’ll probably have to buy two PCs. Macs last ages.

Cheap ≠ Value

If you want to buy a fridge or cooker in the UK you can go to Currys and Comet or John Lewis. Currys sell the cheap, horrible ones which quickly lose efficiency and break and John Lewis sells brilliant stuff that lasts – but it’s expensive. (This makes it worth noting the fact that John Lewis sells Macs whereas Comet and Currys don’t). When shopping for food, you can go to the cheaper Tesco or to the more expensive but higher quality Waitrose. Dell, HP and Acer found themselves trapped in a race-to-the-bottom, each trying to make their products cheaper. What happened? Crappy products and slim margins. In fact, there’s so little money in the PC business for these guys that HP recently called it quits.

Apple decided to stay out of that game. They avoided making awful products and instead made high quality stuff. Apple went for a different market.

Sure, Macs can cost more than PCs. But, they’re better. They are better value and you get a lot more out of a Mac.

Besides, I’ve never understood how people say Apple makes worse computers because their stuff is “overpriced”. A Ferrari costs more than a Volkswagen, but nobody would argue for hours that the Volkswagen is a better car. Sure, it may be cheaper and it may be better for a person with little money, but that doesn’t mean the Volkswagen is better. Just that it’s cheaper.

Today I had to file a company tax return with the government. It was the most technologically awful experience of my life. Let me explain it to you.

First of all you log into the ‘Government Gateway’ and select that you want to file a Corporation Tax return. I clicked through a few pages, carefully reading what turned out to be irrelevant drivel. “I’ll start entering figures soon,” I thought. Not so.

The website eventually asked me to download a PDF saying that would be how I file my return. “No,” I thought, “the whole point of this was to file it online – not print a PDF and send it to them…”. But, I acquiesced.

My Mac opened the PDF in the wonderfully lightweight Preview.

The PDF was just a white page with the words “make sure you are using the latest version of Adobe Reader”.

Hmm. I acquiesced and downloaded Adobe Reader. All 450mb of it.

To my slight amazement the PDF prompted me to enter all my login information where it then validated itself (in the clear, I wouldn’t be surprised). I then had to clumsily click through pages of the PDF entering values. The only help provided was by clicking a ? which gave a popup with bold, unformatted and unpunctuated barely readable text.

After struggling through and entering lots of duplicate information while being offended with bright red errors and ugly green tones everywhere I had to validate the PDF with some ridiculous 16 step process of fiddling with deep Adobe Reader settings which basically gave the app root access to my Mac.

I then had to enter my ‘Government Gateway’ login info one more time, click submit and stare expectantly at a blank page for several minutes until – to my amazement – it declared that it had worked. It then advised me to print a copy of my billion page return which, surprise surprise, wouldn’t work on my Mac.

So there you have it. Submitting a company corporation tax return to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs through a macro-laden PDF.

Why don’t they just have a website? A website which could do have the sums for me, save my progress (why not let me enter it month by month throughout the year), actually function simply and operate like everything else on the website. I could code such a website in a matter of hours. Paying tax should be a simple process.

And, you just know that the government was scammed out of millions by some IT company for that PDF.

A PDF.

I’m sure the Pros and accountants have software which does this for them. And, no wonder. I’ll be buying that next year.

A PDF.

Same goes for hippos, elephants, etc…

“I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave…”

I am gobsmacked. I know I say this a lot, and the Lord of the Rings often ends up creeping back to first place, but this time I mean it: Dracula is absolutely and unequivocally the best book I have ever read.

Published in 1897 by Irish author Bram Stoker, it was proclaimed by the Daily Mail at the time to be a “classic of Gothic horror”. It’s proved not just to be the classic horror book of all time, but a true classic of all fiction.

The first word which springs to mind when thinking of Dracula is “atmospheric”. Stoker creates a book which is so, so atmospheric. In the first 90% of the book the word Vampire is only written a dozen or so times, but it’s still implicit within all of the book. To a Victorian audience the book would have been truly terrifying, I’m sure.

It’s so, so well written. Stoker weaves horror narratives as good as Poe or Mary Shelley or anyone else. He really is a master of fiction and especially the horror genre. In fact, the portion of the book which takes place in Castle Dracula is true literary perfection…

And it is fantastically Victorian British too. When two men have to wake a sleeping lady to check if she’s alive, they first discuss for a minute how rude it is to break in to a sleeping ladies room and the best way to go about it.

Stoker plays on society’s greatest fears and explores the human psyche brilliantly. This isn’t just a vampire novel in which people run screaming from the Count. This is deep. Very deep. And long too. My particular copy is some 460 pages of very small writing. But, it rushes to its final incredible climax like an action movie.

OK, I’m gushing a little bit and getting perhaps a little over excited. But, I just loved Dracula. Loved Dracula. It’s a masterpiece.

Just read it.

Well this is interesting. And, by interesting I mean evil.

It seems the UK government has enacted a 30 day ban on protest marches in an apparent bid to stop further riots.

Your eyes do not deceive you. Protesting, for 30 days is illegal in a few places. Home Secretary Theresa May:

I have given my consent to a ban on all marches in Tower Hamlets and four neighbouring boroughs for a 30-day period.

A number of organisations, including Unite against Fascism, United East End, English Defence League, Europe Against Austerity, had protests planned that will be affected by this ban.

A few curious points: firstly, why just 30 days and why in September, around a month after the riots? What reason is there to make this ban around a random time? It makes no sense. Also, what possible power does the government suppose its using to do this? The idea of a government banning protests for any reason is absurd.

I have a few theories.

One may be that the government is simply pushing the limits to see what it can get away with (perhaps even as part of a world-wide test). If we’ll put up with a ban on marching for 30 days, why not ban protesting stood still? Why not extend it indefinitely? Why not create a designated site in the corner of London where one can protest? Why not enact this rule for the Olympics…?

Another more zany theory is this: on 13-16 September London is to host the world’s biggest arms fair, Defense & Security Equipment International in the exact area which this ban covers. The fair holds every two years in London, this year more than 1200 arms companies will exhibit their deadly products to 25,000 buyers from across the world, including repressive and human rights abusing regimes. A very, very large protest had been planned by antiwar activists and now it’s suddenly illegal… Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

The truly mad thing is that nobody seems to care. Perhaps it’s just me, but why isn’t everybody getting mad about this? Why aren’t Labour going on about this flagrant attack on civil rights? I can’t even find the story on BBC News. I had to get it from a Home Office press release.

sigh

According to Public Policy Polling, only 21 percent of Republican voters in Iowa believe in global warming and only 35 percent believe in evolution.

Oh brother.

In the words of Jeremy Clarkson:

I now believe that in some parts of America, people have actually started mating with vegetables.

I sit a lot. Most of the day, in fact, I spend sat at my desk. And I know a lot of my readers will do the same. Doing that for very long can result in a bad back or other aches and pains. I don’t sit on a conventional chair like most people. Instead, I sit on two different things at different times.

Sometimes I sit on a kneeler (or kneeling) chair which is one of these:

You may have seen one in Lisa Simpson’s room.

There really are fantastic. Even though they lack a back to the chair, they force -well, force is the wrong word, I’ll say- encourage you to sit in an upright position and you don’t even notice there isn’t a back. They keep your hips/legs at around 130 degrees and not 90 degrees like most chairs. This is the correct way. They give your back its natural curvature without enforcing it through one of those silly pillows or something. And, as there isn’t a back, they make sure you don’t slouch and you can’t slouch without falling off. Also, they take all the pressure off your hip joints and split it between the hips and knees making it a lot more comfortable.

Have I said enough? If you sit at a desk for more than a few hours a day you need a kneeler chair. They can also be had relatively cheaply, anywhere from £40 upwards on Amazon. Get one.

Sometimes, however, I’ll sit on an exercise ball. This is wacky chair number two and I find this just as comfortable.

Exercise balls have many of the same characteristics of kneeler chairs. They force you to sit correctly while still being extremely comfortable. I use mine if I’m at my desk for a long time (more than seven or eight hours in a day, say) where I’ll sit on the kneeler for a few hours then the exercise ball for a while to switch it up. I understand this changing of position and technique is good for you.

If you don’t have a kneeler chair for whatever reason, you can pick up an exercise ball for really cheap and that will certainly be better than a chair. I know of a few people who sat on them all day long: Dan Benjamin of 5By5 fame and a programmer guy at the place I did work experience…

So, there’s my advice for those of you who sit.

Michele Bachmann, running for Presidential candidacy for the Republican party, on Carbon Dioxide:

It’s portrayed as harmful, but there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas… It is a harmless gas… And yet we’re being told that we have to reduce this natural substance and reduce the American standard of living to create an arbitrary reduction in something that is naturally occurring in the earth.

Michele Bachmann’s single line response when asked whether or not she supports gay marriage:

We need to have profound compassion for people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life and sexual identity disorders.

Oh brother.